by Penny Kline
The Sister’s Secret
Published by Accent Press Ltd 2018
ISBN 9781682996331
Copyright © Penny Kline 2018
The right of Penny Kline to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers:
Accent Press Ltd
Octavo House
West Bute Street
Cardiff
CF10 5LJ
For my sister Scilla
PROLOGUE
A door at the back had been forced open. Easy enough to follow the crowd. Hanging onto the wobbly stair rail, breathing in the choking dust, then out into the open where the protesters swarmed, like a pack of rats, over the tangle of steel scaffolding. Bodies on the move, hoodies pulled up over ears that buzzed with the deafening racket of rock music. Someone with a spanner was tampering with a link, twisting and turning, loosening, starting on another. The first pole lay on a plank of wood. Short but surprisingly heavy.
A short distance down the hill, but clearly visible, the two of them were approaching, one carrying bags of shopping, the other holding something to her mouth. Guzzling. As they grew closer, a street lamp lit up the purple wool of her beanie hat, and the red of her coat, like a bull fighter’s cape.
Any minute now they would draw level. But on the wrong side of the road. And any minute now the police would storm the building, making arrests, clamping on handcuffs, turning the protesters into martyrs for the cause. Timing was everything. A high-pitched sound. A sudden movement. The mewing of a poor cat.
Mow! Miaow!
One of the protesters turned, grinning, raising a banner with his muscular, tattooed arms.
Mow! Miaow!
“Purple beanie” stopped. Crossed the road. Screwed up her eyes, scanning the building for a glimpse of a furry tail or a pair of yellow eyes.
Mow! Miaow!
And the steel tube fell.
Don’t look. Run! Back, down the rickety stairs, and out through the half-open door. A police siren wailed, growing closer. Run. Faster. Lost in the maze of the dark city streets.
Chapter 1
The date on Claudia’s death certificate was not the same as the day she died. It was not even the same year. Before her sister’s death, Erin had thought it so simple. Now she knew better.
In the twenty-third week of her pregnancy Claudia had suffered an intracranial haemorrhage, the pathological accumulation of blood within the cranial vault. Neurosurgery drained the haematoma, but during the operation she deteriorated and there was nothing the doctors could do. A corpse is cold, pale, and it is not pregnant. In Claudia’s case none of this was true. But her brain was dead.
Throughout their vigil, Ollie barely spoke. Like Erin, he was dry-eyed, too shocked to cry, and gave no indication he was listening when the consultant, a sandy-haired man with a bow tie and a Scottish accent, introduced himself as Dr Macaulay. An ultrasound examination had been carried out, he said, and the baby appeared unharmed, but was too undeveloped to be delivered. A choice needed to be made – either Claudia’s life support system would be disconnected, or they would try to maintain maternal homeostasis until greater foetal maturity had been achieved. Or meaning, until the baby had a chance of survival.
‘What are the odds?’ Erin asked. Odds – what an inappropriate word – but she was trying to be practical, take responsibility – for Ollie’s sake, she told herself. Her first time in intensive care units, and when she spoke her breath came in shallow gasps. ‘What I meant, how likely is it the baby could be born, and be all right?’
The consultant spoke slowly, gently. ‘Had the pregnancy been less than twenty weeks I would have been unwilling to prolong maternal life. Twenty-three weeks is a different matter. I can make no promises but if gestation is allowed to continue for another month, or a little longer, and no serious problems arise . . . The baby would need special care but if everything went according to plan . . .’ He broke off, turning to Ollie, who had lowered his eyes and was murmuring something that sounded like “die”.
Erin squeezed his hand. ‘What did you say?’
His lips were slightly parted and the pale, almost girl-like face, that Claudia had fallen for, was contorted with pain.
‘Try to think what Claudia would have wanted,’ she urged.
The curtained-off cubicle felt like a tent in a war zone. Above the bed a display of monitors flickered with constantly changing numbers – ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-eight – and coloured lines with waves or spikes, and a flat line – not the heart rate. Another piece of equipment had a number that could be Claudia’s body temperature, or was it the baby’s? Hospital smells mingled with the sharp scent of floor polish and outside, in the main area, sounds of activity could be heard; footsteps, a trolley with squeaking wheels, the clink of glass, someone coughing. Apart from the tubes and wires and the dressing on the side of her head, Claudia could have been sleeping peacefully.
‘If the baby could be saved . . .’ Erin looked at Ollie then back at Dr Macaulay, willing him to come down on her side. But when he spoke it was to tell Ollie he realised it was a difficult decision and he would need a little time to think about it.
The following day Ollie refused all invitations to talk, or to share her unappetizing meals but, just when she was giving up hope, he tapped on the door of her flat – in the loft of Claudia’s house – and told her he was going to the university.
‘Now?’
‘There’s something I h-have to d-d-do.’ The stutter he normally managed to control had come back. ‘I d-don’t know what t-time I’ll be back.’
‘I’m not going out.’ If he was going to talk to another postgraduate student, that was good. Hearing the facts, anyone would think the baby should be saved. She was not the best person to discuss it with him – she was too involved – but surely his university friends would agree with her. Was he in touch with his family? She knew so little about him but Claudia was the talker. Ollie was quiet. He looked and sounded exhausted and, if anything even more agitated. Was he coming round to her way of thinking? Like her, he would have slept only fitfully, or not at all, but in the cold light of day he must have realised the baby had a right to live.
‘Do you have any family, Ollie?’
‘My father d-died a year ago.’
‘What about your mother?’ His mother would want her grandchild to survive.
‘She’s not well. Her nerves.’
‘I’m sorry.’ What could she say? He was alone in the world, or saw himself that way. Claudia had been his closest friend, his soulmate. Without her, he was lost.
‘I thought the baby would be dead.’
‘I know.’ She had expected the same, but was not going to say so. As soon as she knew there was a chance, she had been determined to do everything in her power to save it.
‘I’ll see you later then.’ She attempted a brief hug, but his body was rigid, and a moment later she heard him running down both sets of stairs, and the front door closed, not with the loud familiar noise of Claudia leaving the house, but a quiet, almost imperceptible click.
Claudia. Two days ago they had been discussing the birth of her first child. Now she was being kept alive artificially, but her baby was still gro
wing inside her. How could she be dead? She was only twenty-seven, born when Erin was just a year old. Had she made a will? Since she and Ollie had been together such a short time, it was unlikely she had got round to those kind of decisions. While Ollie was out, she could look through her papers. It was far too soon to think about such things but being practical might help a little. It had when their parents died.
Soft, padding steps approached. The cat from down the road that made use of Claudia’s cat flap. Erin’s door was half open but it let out loud mews to announce its arrival, squeezing through the gap and spending a few moments sniffing her trainers before curling up on the bed. Claudia must have fed it. Which house did it live in? Not the people next door – they had gone abroad for several months – and not Claudia’s friends, Jennie and Ben. Resting her cheek on its head, Erin breathed in someone else’s perfume. Whose, she wondered, the owner of the house where it had made its last visit?
Unlike her sister, she had no particular liking for cats, and this was an ugly creature with colouring that made its mouth appear to turn down at the corners. But she was starved of company and it added a touch of homeliness to the place. She had a bed – low to the ground and with an uncomfortably thin mattress – a built-in cupboard with three shelves and space for a dozen or so hangers, and a small table and two chairs. A couple of Indian rugs covered part of the bare boards, and Claudia had hung one of Ollie’s grainy black and white photographs on the wall.
The coast was not far, but far enough that Erin had not explored it. Ollie’s photo was somewhere with a long stretch of empty beach, the tide out so that grey sand gave way to a dark, distant sea. Not a cheerful scene, but typical of Ollie, who was a kind, sensitive person but with layers underneath the kindness that he was careful not to reveal, and a strong streak of obstinacy.
What was he doing now? Telling his friends what had happened and asking their advice, feeling a little comforted by their support, or alone, staring at his computer, trying to lose himself in rows of tables and figures? For her own part, work was out of the question. All she could do was pace up and down, picking up drawings and putting them down again, and making endless cups of coffee that made her head ache. She ate a ginger biscuit but it tasted of sawdust. She needed some fresh air but was reluctant to leave the house in case Ollie returned.
The loft felt alien. A plan chest was the only piece of furniture she had brought with her and, at first, getting it up the stairs and through the door had looked impossible. But the man with a van had helped her lift and turn it, then rest it on a step and try again, until eventually they were able to place it triumphantly in the position she had selected under the window.
At first the sparseness of the flat had pleased her, much as a nun must feel good about the simplicity of her surroundings. Not that there was anything nun-like about her existence, apart from the celibacy. Before it happened, she had eaten reasonably well – mostly pasta –and as long as she had a bottle of wine she got by. Things would change – they always did –that was what she told herself. But not this way, not an empty, echoing house, and Claudia . . . dead.
As she stroked the cat, a paw shot out and scratched her hand and, sucking away the pin pricks of blood, she gazed around the room, painfully aware of how inadequate it was compared to her studio in London. The flat in South Wimbledon had been too expensive, but it was only temporary. In a few months’ time Declan’s divorce would have come through and the two of them would have found a new place to live.
Would Declan’s presence have made Claudia’s death easier to bear? How would he have reacted? By helping her persuade Ollie that Claudia must be kept on life support until the baby could be born, or – and this was far more likely – by telling her the baby was not her responsibility and she should let Ollie get on with it? Before the accident she had envied Claudia so much, partly for her new found happiness with Ollie, but mainly because she was going to have a child. You can be a glorified godmother, Erin. After all, it won’t have any other relatives.
If they had not chosen that particular day to go down to the shops and buy the baby shoes . . . If, as Claudia suggested, they had visited the coffee place and sampled the new chocolate pastries . . . If she had believed Declan’s lies and stayed in London. So many ifs.
The cat jumped off the bed and started looking round for somewhere to sharpen its claws. She needed shelves where she could keep her Indian inks and brushes, masking tape and a hundred other things, but how long would she be in the house and after that where would she go? When she felt up to it, she would try to discover if Claudia had a solicitor and whether there were any unpaid bills or outstanding mortgage repayments – or savings, although the latter was unlikely. Claudia had never been good with money. Neither had she been much interested in housework, although the baby was to have a newly decorated room.
How could it have happened? Tears sprang to her eyes, but she brushed them away. Don’t think about it. Let the police make their investigations. What investigations? The building had been teeming with protesters, and it was dark, and any one of them could have meddled with the scaffolding poles.
Later, when she was on the point of going to bed, the front door opened and closed and she heard Ollie’s footsteps on the loft stairs and hurried to let him in.
‘I’ve decided.’ He stood in the doorway. His face was blank and she saw he had not bothered to shave, his fair hair needed washing and had lost its usual sheen.
‘Come and sit down.’ Pointlessly, she plumped up an Indian cushion. ‘How are you? Have you had anything to eat? Would you like a drink?’
He rubbed his eyes. ‘I want them both to be allowed to die.’
With a supreme effort, she kept quiet.
‘It’s for the best.’ The stutter seemed to have disappeared. ‘It’s what she would have wanted.’
‘When you called in at the university did you see any of your friends?’
‘It’s the holidays.’ He kept blinking, rubbing his eyes.
‘But the other research students must be there. Did you tell them? Did any of them know Claudia? They must be so shocked.’ She was talking too much because the tension in the room was making it difficult to breathe.
Ollie had his head turned away and she thought how painfully thin his neck was. It made her want to protect him. Or would have wanted to if circumstances had been different. She tried again. ‘I do understand what a difficult decision it is.’
‘My decision.’
‘Yes.’ But he and Claudia had not been married so surely she was her next of kin. What was the law? She could look it up, should have thought of it before? She glanced at her tablet, fingers itching to check online.
‘I’m going to let the doctor know tomorrow’ He waved aside her offer of a glass of wine, clutching the top of his crumpled T-shirt and winding it into a knot. ‘Can you c-come with me?’
‘Yes, of course, but it’s your baby, Ollie, a person. I do understand how you feel but Claudia was my sister and I’m certain she would have wanted her baby to be born.’
‘So you’ll come.’
‘I’ll come.’ Instinctively, Erin folded her arms in a gesture of self-protection. ‘But I’m not going to let you kill the baby.’
Chapter 2
When they returned to the hospital a different doctor was on duty; tall, with a flat, round face and receding hair. This threw Erin a little, but Ollie hardly seemed to notice. She had checked the legalities of the situation, but they were not clear. A decision regarding the patient’s treatment was taken in consensus with their family. If the patient was not married, the biological father plays a major role. This was bad news. On the other hand, one of the determining factors was whether the mother had expressed a wish to be an organ donor and Erin remembered how Claudia had registered her wish online, as well as carrying a card in her purse. The website said that could be interpreted to mean the unborn baby had a right to benefit from what it described as “the mother’s organic function”.
The cubicle was hot. The whole hospital felt too hot. Claudia lay on her back, with her hair spread out on the pillow. Someone had brushed it with care – it was long and blonde, unlike Erin’s which was light brown and curled in the rain – and it made her look like Sleeping Beauty, except Sleeping Beauty was not attached to an array of monitors. And no prince was going to wake Claudia with a kiss. Their mother had always told Erin how pretty she was, with her small features and hazel eyes, but Claudia was the beauty, taller, more curvaceous, sexier.
One small blessing was that their parents would never know what had happened. They had died on holiday in India when their bus fell down a crevasse – she and Claudia had never discovered the exact details – and later Erin had traced their journey on a map and allowed herself to grieve while at the same time, being thankful they had both gone together. Neither of them would have been happy on their own.
The doctor cleared his throat and Erin opened her mouth to ask how Claudia was – she meant the baby, of course – then decided she ought to let Ollie speak first, although when the doctor started talking he addressed his remarks to her.
‘We estimate the weight of the foetus as around nine hundred grams.’
Was that all? A quick calculation told her it was roughly two pounds. A baby that small might survive but, from everything she had read, the chances of it being handicapped in some way were quite high.
‘Should gestation be allowed to progress,’ the doctor continued, ‘your sister would be fed intravenously and given drugs and hormones and antibiotics for infections, if necessary.’
‘How long would it be?’ Erin asked, ‘I mean before it could be born.’
‘Hard to say. It would depend on several factors.’
‘But it stands a chance?’
‘Yes.’
And after it was born, she thought, the life support system would be disconnected and Claudia’s part in the survival of her child would come to an end. She turned to Ollie – so did the doctor – but his shoulders were hunched and his gaze fixed on the window, with its frosted glass. He had washed his hair – a good sign, Erin told herself – and smelled faintly of lemon shampoo. His hands were clenched into fists.
